Publick Nuisance

The secret files of the Ventureverse

If you've never watched one of our episodes on adultswim.com, this is your week to do it!

Why? Because it's the only place (short of the season 3 DVD anyway) to see a full extra two minutes we had to cut out of the broadcast version. Far from the usual "padding" or "meandering bullshit" we normally cut from our episodes, these two minutes are actually an action-packed, hilarious and entirely self-contained scene that you will not want to miss! The new episodes usually premiere online at about 6pm EST, but sometimes they're up earlier than that.

. . .

So here we are again...about to launch into another epic two-part season finale. Season 3 has been a long haul, and it's not even over for us yet. We still have to mix the final final episode and deliver it to the network, which will happen around Monday. We've not had a break since April or May of 2007, and though my load has been lightened in recent weeks, it doesn't look like we'll get a proper one until Season 4 is finished...

...but we haven't exactly started Season 4 yet. Well, we have and we haven't. It seems we were a bit premature and overly optimistic when we launched headlong into production over a month ago. Doc and I struggled to turn our first two scripts in late, and it was immediately apparent that we would not be able to continue on through the season in that vein. So the first two episodes were designed and storyboarded, we recorded one of them (with special guest star, the legendary Kevin Conroy!), and then we sent everyone on the staff home for six weeks. Which is easily the suckiest thing I've ever had to do on this show. The deadlines on the last few season 3 episodes were just too tight, and we were just too exhausted to start sprinting into production full steam right away. Aside from being impossible, the quality would have seriously suffered, so we're taking this month to finish post-production, rest a bit, regroup and recharge. Our plan is to get a couple of scripts ahead and then resume production in mid-September. I'm not sure yet where that puts us in terms of a Season 4 premiere date, but I'm guessing we're looking at next Fall.

In Other News...• I had a blast at the San Diego Comicon this year. As usual, the fans were fantastic--a pleasure to meet and sign for--and I saw some hysterically great Venture Bros. costumes. The rest of my time was spent drinking with old friends, drooling over turn-of-the-century prints I'll never be able to afford at Century Guild Gallery's booth, ogling Hayden Panettierre from afar, perusing The Watchmen's Owl Ship, and discovering that Patton Oswalt has a huge geek chubby for The Venture Bros. I also received the coolest, weirdest gift from a fan ever--only to discover it missing from my mysteriously open suitcase when it came around the baggage carousel back at JFK.

• Doc and I will be attending DragonCon down in Atlanta together, as it turns out. We're set to do a panel on Saturday--though I don't know what time yet, or who else will be on it--and we'll undoubtedly arrange some sort of signing during the weekend as well.

• The Dark Knight was really excellent.

• I don't know where I've been for the past few years, but I finally discovered and got hooked on Brian K. Vaughan's Ex-Machina comic series last week and blew through every trade paperback and uncollected issue in about two days. Check it out. Especially if you're a New Yorker.

• Persepolis and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly were pretty great. Best DVD double feature I've enjoyed in years. Way better than the night I got In Bruges and 10,000 B.C. on Pay-Per-View.

Lastly, A Quick Update About Shirt Club...A very small minority of you Shirt Club members have fallen victim to American Apparel's continued ham-handed customer service in that a handful of the Dean, Camp Rusty, and Order of the Triad orders are still outstanding. The full supply of Dr. Girlfriend shirts are shipping as I write this, though, and the O.S.I. shirts are on-track for on-time delivery. The Original Team Venture shirts will probably suffer some delays, however, as ringer style t-shirts always seem to give us the most trouble. Again, apologies to all those affected by these delays, and thanks for your continued patronage.

We Love You,

JP

Life imitates Art, courtesy of The Venture Bros. and Siobhan Mullen's deft camera. Click on Siobhan's name and check out her blog for more delightful photos and the occasional Venture Bros. behind-the-scenes post.

Aeon Flux

I loved the tribute to Aeon Flux via "Herr Trigger," you guys nailed that dead. Shame MTV still has not released Liquid Television on dvd (all of the episodes). I have finally, in 2008 finally tracked down all of the Liquid Television episodes from a friend of a friend.

I also finally remembered where you guys got the inspiration for Henry Killinger; from the 1979 Doctor Who Episode: The Armageddon Factor.

I have a question. Are you guys going to be bringing on any other writers for season four (and beyond)? I know that Jackson writes the majority of the episodes, with Doc filling in, and there has been at least one guest writer.

The reason why I ask is that I don't want to see you guys get burned out, and it's always good to bring in some new blood.

That said, I am fucking still BLOWN AWAY by what you two fellas have accomplished in the past three seasons. Your small, talented team has produced a show that eclipses animated shows with 10x the budget and personnel. The quality of the writing is far beyond that of 99% of the shows on t.v. anywhere in the world. The only show I think comes close to the quality on TVB is "Peep Show" in England, and heck, they have only made 30 episodes in the past five years.

Re: Aeon Flux

Wow, thanks for all the compliments, but you are totally wrong about everything else!

Herr Trigger was not inspired by Aeon Flux, but I can see where you'd think so, what with all the leather and the tonguing and stuff. He's really just supposed to be a nutso German fetishist, designed to look like Klaus Kinski.

Henry Killinger was inspired by Henry Kissinger, not a character from Doctor Who. I've actually never even seen a full episode of Doctor Who.

And I don't write "the majority of the episodes." Granted, I wrote one more than Doc did this particular season, which is technically a majority, but we split the solo scripts pretty evenly for the most part and we write the rest together. The farthest possible thing from "filling in," Doc is half of the creative force behind the writing of the show.

Ben Edlund filled in on one episode in season two, as he is a great friend and both Doc and I have long and separate collaborative histories with him, so it was no trick for him to step into our mindset. It's possible he'll contribute a script for season 4, and more than likely I'll brainstorm with him over the phone from time to time, but aside from him we have no intention of seeking out other writers. This has evolved into a highly personal show we write, and though the workload is killing us, it would kill us more to read someone else's version of it.

Not that I have anything against new blood, but we've been open to the possibility of fate introducing us to the right person at the right time and it hasn't happened in four years of production on this show. The last thing either of us has any desire to do is read a bunch of spec scripts and try out a total stranger.

Re: Aeon Flux

You have never seen a Dr. Who episode?! Man, you freakin' missed out! My dad is from England, and I remember back in 1978 he told me that Dr. Who was premiering that night on PBS and he told me that I should watch it. I asked him if there were any robots in it, and he went on to tell me about the Daleks and the Cybermen. The Cybermen piqued my interests because my dad said that they were "robots with blood," (doing his best to explain cybernetics to a four year old). The first episode was called "Robot," and I was hooked ever since.

Dr. Who had it's heydey, pretty much from the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, through the end of the fifth doctor, Peter Davidson.

Dr. Who who practically invented mostly all of modern sci-fi, from the first introduction of cyborgs, to the creation of "The Matrix" way back in 1978 (it was even called The Matrix in the episode).

You should definitely get into "classic who" as you would have endless fodder for VB. Douglas Adams even penned a few episodes during the Tom Baker era. I suggest importing "The Key to Time Series," which Adams wrote the classic episode "The Pirate Planet" on dvd. Bruce Purchase's performance as the Pirate is classic.

Dr. Who aside, if you have not seen Peep Show, man you gotta get all five seasons on dvd. It won the BAFTA for best comedy series last year, beating out some very stiff competition.

Here is the episode that won in it's entirety, it's fucking hilarious:

Re: Aeon Flux

Actually the introduction of the cyborg goes back to the early 60s (unless you want to get into serious origin analysis, which would add at least a decade or two to its age), in a paper written to describe how we could take advantage of man-machine hybrids for space travel. I forget the details, of the work, but we're all nerds here, someone must know the name of it... At any rate, as much as I love Dr. Who, you can't simply attribute 40-50 years worth of pioneering science fiction writing to one show. You have to give credit to people who were writing about this stuff at the turn of the century.

Re: Aeon Flux

Oh, no, I was not implying that Dr. Who was the end all and be all of science fiction, but if Mr. Publick has never seen it, especially the old series, he's missing out on a lot of great, classic sci-fi, and a lot of fodder for the VB to use.

Take for instance the episode "The Brain of Morbius." Very well written episode, but it's hard not to laugh at Morbius once his brain is put into that ridiculous monster body. The Doctor even calls him "Potpourri."

As far as cyborgs go, one of my favourite authors, Edgar Allen Poe, was one of the first authors to have a man-machine hybrid in the short story, "The man who was all used up." The character "cyborg" of John A.B.C. Smith, was inspiration for the main villain, Loveless, in the horrible movie, "Wild, Wild, West."

But for the modern word "cyborg" was not really used until the early 60's. The Cybermen were one of the first cybernetic creatures in modern sci-fi, as they were introduced in the Dr. Who episode, "The Tenth Planet," in 1966. I don't think even Star Trek (the original series) had cyborgs.